“Rorn.” He didn’t turn back, but he did stop. “Stars, Rorn. Go and be with her. You want to, I can tell, so cease being a stubborn coward.”

He set loose a rough chuckle and turned to glare at me. “You’re wrong and entirely out of line to suggest…” He stopped and blew out a harsh breath. A groan followed. “Fuck, Astrantia.” Our eyes locked, torment bleeding from his own.

Finally, he moved. He handed me what remained of his wine and continued down the stairs.

Watching him go, I couldn’t decide if I was glad he’d listened or what it meant that he had. The wine warmed in my hand as I slumped against the stone.

Carelda’s screaming continued long into the night.

To give birth, to merely carry a babe to term, came with higher risk for those of faerie blood. My own mother had perished after delivering me. Maybe that was what kept me rooted to the stone steps, my limbs long numb.

I’d never known her, yet I couldn’t keep from imagining what she might make of this life of mine. The one she’d sacrificed herself to give.

When I woke, the wine was seeping into the cracks of the steps, the glass having fallen from my hand. The first hints of sunrise leaked into the towers, followed shortly by something else.

The magical, heart-scoring wail of new life.

TWELVE

Aster

Rorn, looking less pale but no less exhausted, visited my parlor two days after his son was born. “Would you like to meet him?”

The grape I’d just chewed stuck to my throat when I swallowed. I placed the bowl down beside me on the chaise and tried to make sense of what I now had to do. Nothing made sense anymore, but that was not the fault of an innocent new soul.

So I sipped some water and nodded.

It was what was expected of me, after all.

Rorn’s eyes gleamed, his lips parting as if he would say something else.

I stood but did not move, and he closed his mouth.

Wise, I thought, as I trailed him downstairs and through the lower levels of the towers. If he’d said anything else, I would likely have stayed in the parlor.

His hair was in dire need of a wash, but his shoulders were loose and high, and he walked with that same arrogant grace.

A proud king. A proud father.

The burn in my eyes cleared when he reached the stairs to the kitchens and staff quarters. He was still keeping them tucked away, then. I’d feared as much from what I’d heard—the cries of a newborn still so distant at night.